USDA Awards $88,000 Grant for Chicken Feed | Big Island Now

See on Scoop.itProtein Alternatives: Insects as Mini-Livestock

A Texas entrepreneur wants to revive the local poultry industry by making chicken feed from fly larvae.

Ana C. Day‘s insight:

"Prota Culture was funded by the DOA to develop “a competitively priced poultry feed in Hawaii rendered from organic wastes using a protein-synthesizing, beneficial insect,” said the ag department’s release.

Prota Culture simply uses black soldier fly larvae to eat food waste, then uses the fattened grubs to process into feed, said owner Robert Olivier, speaking from his Oahu office. The process also diverts food waste from landfills where it releases significant amounts of the greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere.

Rising costs of fuel and feed in Hawaii were largely to blame for the consumer shift from locally produced eggs to mainland-produced eggs that are shipped to Hawaii, Olivier said, taking down a $16 million local industry over the past 20 years."

See on bigislandnow.com

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